


By Whatever Means Necessary

by Kunstpause



Series: Ad Astra Per Aspera [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Female Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Implied Sexual Content, Multi, Named Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Origin Story, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:20:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26772808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kunstpause/pseuds/Kunstpause
Summary: After ship-wrecking in a storm, Cassia wakes up in a strange country that just survived a massive calamity, surrounded by people who have never even heard of her home. She knows only two things: First - that a sheltered life hidden away by her parents has not prepared her to survive on her own at all. And second - that if she managed to survive, her sister might have too. And Cassia has to find her, by whatever means necessary.
Series: Ad Astra Per Aspera [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1951753
Kudos: 4





	By Whatever Means Necessary

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Splintered](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26475544) by [Elveny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elveny/pseuds/Elveny). 



Cold.

The first thing Cassia thought when she woke up was how bitingly cold everything was. 

She had never been one to be bothered by cold all that much, her natural affinity to ice magic making her much less susceptible to it. But the kind of cold that was suddenly all around her felt different. More pronounced and far, far harsher than anything she knew.

Which wasn’t a lot, she soon found out. 

“Found you outside in the wilderness, unconscious,” a healer who gave her potions for warming up and a stack of blankets explained. “Someone dragged you all the way into the city, you got very lucky!” he added a little later.

The more awake Cassia got, the more questions she asked, the more she started to doubt that sentence.

The last thing she remembered was being on a boat. 

The storm threw the ship from left to right like it was a small toy. Lightning cracking from above and the unmistakable sounds of the wooden mast splintering. She held on tight to her sister’s hand as the world around them felt like it was breaking apart at the seams. Adriene looked at her, eyes filled with both fear and determination before they did the one thing they still could control and jumped. Right off the twisting boat that broke apart underneath their feet and into the freezing cold depths below.

_ ‘ _ _ It is only when you fall that you learn whether you can fly. _ _ ’ _

The sentence ran through her head as the waves crashed together on top of her and a moment later Cassia knew one thing with absolute certainty: 

She couldn’t fly.

Desperately, she tried to hold on to Adriene’s hand at least, but the water kept dragging her down, it’s freezing coldness seeping into their skin, paralyzing, weighing on her until she was ripped away from her. Cassia had once heard that drowning was supposed to be one of the most peaceful ways to go. Whoever told her that had been wrong, she knew now. There was nothing peaceful about the burning in her lungs and the feeling of icy shards cutting up her skin. And yet she could not stop fighting. No matter how sluggish her movement became. She remembered her father’s words, the one thing he had told her through all her years. _‘Stay alive, by whatever means necessary!’_

Cassia did not drown after all. Her memory was fractured, but she distinctively remembered the sudden warmth that felt almost like an embrace. Light everywhere around her and a gentle voice telling her to  _ ‘Hear, feel, think!’ _

It felt like a strange fever dream, and from the pain still surging through her lungs when she breathed, Cassia knew she had been as close to death as she could imagine. 

It took her about three days of recovering and asking around to know for certain that she was utterly lost. She hadn’t made it to Kirkwall after all, and from the clueless looks people gave her at most of her questions, no one had ever even heard of it. Neither did they know Lothering, Ferelden, Orlais, or any other country she could name.

“You speak about strange places and you say you were shipwrecked?” a merchant said to her with a thoughtful look. “Perhaps those lands you speak lie across the ocean in what we call the new world. It’s all unexplored territory, really, but that is the only place I could think of.”

When Cassia asked with a spark of hope in her eyes how to get there, the old woman let out a disbelieving laugh. “You can’t, my dear,” she said, “why do you think it is unexplored? No one goes there, and you should be lucky you’re still alive and not look for the best way to kill yourself.”

And that was the end of that conversation for the old merchant. Not for Cassia though. But the more she inquired about this new world, the more she realized that it might not hold the answers she was looking for. Nothing people told her about it sounded like her home. Her home that not a single person seemed to know. Nor had anyone heard about anyone else like her. She described her brother, her mother, and her sisters to every person she talked to, but the answer was always the same. No one had seen them or even heard of them. And Cassia herself had been found alone.

“If there was someone else out there in your condition, they are long dead,” the healer nursing her back to health had said with a sad smile, and Cassia felt the cold seep through the blankets and her clothes into her heart. The healer took pity on her as he put a soothing hand on her shoulder. 

“ Audentes fortuna iuvat,” he told her. Explaining that in his native tongue, it meant that fortune would favour the bold. That she shouldn’t give up. That the city around them was vast and crowded and she just might have to keep looking. 

And so Cassia tried her best to not let the despair grow too strong. To keep the cold eating away at her at bay for now. She learned all she could about the so-called calamity that had just swept over the land, watched the steady stream of refugees pour into the city carefully and full of hope each time they opened the large gates. Until the day they told her she was healed enough to no longer be able to stay with the medics. And just like that, she was out in the cold, alone in a city that was something akin to terrifying.

The first time she saw someone use magic right out in the open, she instinctively dove behind the next merchant's stall, cowering close to the ground, desperately hoping that whatever authority would swoop down would pay no attention to her. It took her quite a while to realize that nothing was happening. Even more time to see a pattern. There weren’t too many people doing it, but whenever someone used magic, clearly visible and in bright daylight, no one seemed to think it odd at all. This more than anything else gave her pause. Where in the world had she landed that this was possible? For a brief second, she was terrified that she might have been brought to a remote place in Tevinter, but nothing about this place matched any of the descriptions she read. 

Nothing Cassia had ever seen or even just heard about before could have prepared her for the strangeness of her surroundings. Her eyes almost fell out of her head when someone told her that this wasn’t even one of their bigger cities but just one of the smaller, coastal ones. Denerim felt like a small village in comparison.

Cassia was full of weary unease while exploring the city and its possibilities. She needed a place to stay. Some work to be able to afford it, but she had no idea just how to go about all that. She had spent her life being hidden away and protected from templars, and with the exception of a couple of household skills, she had done nothing but practice her magic with her father and sister for the last few years. And most of that time had consisted of her trying desperately to manage the most basic control over her talent, that still never seemed to quite work right for her.

Now more than ever before. When she tried to conjure up a small flame to keep herself warm, she barely managed to not burn off her own hair. Whatever control issues she had had in her youth seemed to be so much more pronounced now that she didn’t dare to try again.

It took Cassia about a day of asking around for work to accept the fact that she had no actual, useful skills to make a living with. Dejected, she was on her way back to the medic’s place, wondering if she could perhaps convince them to let her stay another night or two when a loud whistle caught her attention.

When she turned around, there was a man eying her up and down. “How much for the night?” he said with a leering smile, dragging his eyes up her body with intent, and Cassia shuddered under his look, the mere implication making her nauseous. With a hastily murmured denial, Cassia hurried along as the man went back to leaning against a column and speaking to one of the merchants with a disappointed look and a shrug.

Cassia still shuddered as she reached her destination. The mere thought of it had put a desperate look on her face as she asked for a place to stay the night. The time she had already spent in this city had made it clear that the freezingly cold nights were not something she could weather like she was now. But when they denied her help, telling her the same things they had said earlier again, Cassia felt something heavy in her stomach. 

Dread.

The sun was almost down and with it would go the last bit of warmth. In a little while, the already cold city would become outright dangerous. As she walked away from the medics, teeth already slightly clattering from the biting wind, she saw the man from earlier still leaning against the column. He was alone now, and most of all, he was still looking at her.

The shudder from earlier returned as she felt lower than ever before as she considered her options. Audentes fortuna iuvat. She had neither a favour nor a fortune and she was in desperate need of both. She had no chance of looking for her family if she was dead or crippled by frostbite, after all. The words of her father rang through her head again.  _ ‘Stay alive, by whatever is necessary!’  _

The cold seeped closer to her heart again as Cassia put one foot in front of the other. Toward him, toward a hope drenched in dread and fear. 

“Ah, reconsidering my offer?” he said cheekily as she was close enough and the leer was back on his face as she nodded. He wanted her to name a price again, and Cassia stumbled for a moment before she told him she’d charge the standard rate, somewhat blindly hoping that it would be enough money for her to start somewhere and not too much so he would turn her down. He was much taller than she, and Cassia had to crane her neck to look up to him. Something must have shown on her face. A flicker of insecurity, and suddenly, he pulled her against him with a calculating smile. 

“So, how about a little discount for making me wait,” he said in a low voice. “Say, 10%?”

Cassia swallowed, trying her best not to go rigid under the unexpected touch. She needed this. A place to say to the night and some money, and a second later, she nodded, telling him that if he threw in a free dinner, he had a deal.

With a delighted smile, he put an arm around her shoulders as he led her away from the busy streets, making lewd promises of how much she would be enjoying the night.

The moment the door to his home closed behind them, Cassia found herself crowded against it, lips on her skin wandering up her neck as his hands lost no time and got busy starting to undress her. A wave of helplessness washed over her as Cassia struggled to keep up, her own hands clumsy as she tried to match what he was doing. 

A moment later he drew back with a knowing smile on his face. “You’re not actually a whore, are you?”

A sliver of fear went through Cassia as she froze up. But he did not look like he was about to throw her out after all, and with a defeated look, she nodded before explaining her situation. When she finished, there was something akin to pity in his eyes, and it almost felt worse than what had been there before. 

“Fallen on hard times, huh?” he said with a shake of his head. “I am almost tempted to simply help you out of the good of my heart.” As his eyes went over her once more, something on his expression changed again. “But I can’t deny that I was really looking forward to fuck you, so…” He paused briefly before looking at her face again. “You’re not a professional, but are you any good?”

The crude, direct way he was talking to her threw Cassia off for a moment, and she swallowed harshly, trying to gather her wits but there was nothing much she could say. Except telling him that she herself had no idea. She didn’t expect the excitement that suddenly shone in his eyes at her complete inexperience.

“Oh, you should have led with that,” he murmured as he leaned closer again. “For that alone I will pay you well enough, and tomorrow, I will show you the ins and outs of this city, maybe even introduce you to a few people who could help you. Deal?” 

Cassia barely had time to nod before his mouth was on hers and his tongue pushed inside her with a greedy moan, her relief of having a roof over her head for tonight at least drowning out everything else. A moment later, he took a step back, holding out a hand for her to grasp as he nodded at the stairs behind them. “Come on then, I’ll even make it nice for you,” he said with a wink. Cassia swallowed again as she looked up the darkened stairway behind him. She wasn’t a whore, he had been right about that, but as she took his hand and let herself be led upstairs, she knew she was about to become one.

He kept his word, and a day later, Cassia had met more people willing to pay for a night with her than she could count on her hands. One among them bringing her to an establishment that was something Cassia had never seen before. Men and women in sparse clothing were dancing around, surrounded by cheering and appreciating audiences. Cassia saw money being exchanged for some more personal dances, people disappearing into smaller rooms together, and she knew what kind of place she had come to from stories she had read. It would seem that, for all the differences between this strange city and her home, some things remained the same.

The owner, a tall, stern-looking woman that called herself Lady Luck took Cassia back into a more quiet part of the building. When they were alone, she looked her up and down with a calculating eye. “My friend tells me you are looking for work,” she said, straight to the point. “That you are a bit inexperienced but that you have potential.” 

Cassia felt herself being scrutinized like she was on display for sale. In a way she was, she guessed as she nodded in agreement. Despite her initial dread and outright fear, the last few days and nights had not been outright horrible. As embarrassed as she felt about it, she had to admit that she had even managed to take some pleasure out of some of the encounters. There was an underlying current of shame running through her that she was unable to shake, but this looked more and more like it would be her best shot to survive in this strange place for now. She needed money and security so she could keep looking for her family after all. And for that, she was willing to learn. When she told her as much, Lady Luck gave her a small smile.

“Oh, don’t worry, we will teach you all you need to know. There may always be customers who enjoy the stumbling helpless act, but most of them will expect more of you.” She took one of Cassia’s hands, running her finger over the inside of her palm. “Soft,” she murmured. “You have never done physical labour in your life, have you?” she asked with a smile, and when Cassia nodded again, it got wider. “I guess if you look like you do there really is no need, huh?” she added with a teasing grin before dropping Cassia’s hand. “You can have one of the rooms upstairs that will be yours from now on, and tomorrow, you’ll start training.”

And just like that, Cassia started to settle into an entirely new life with surprising ease. The establishment, while in the lower parts of town, took good care of its workers and for now, her problems of worrying about just where to sleep the next few nights were no more. ‘Training’ consisted of the more experienced workers taking turns in showing her every possible way of pleasing both men and women with every part of her body until Cassia was busy with offers that kept her occupied almost every night until the cusp of dawn.

Some of the faces she took into the private rooms each night became familiar, calling on her again and again, offering small gifts and compliments to show their devotion to her. Like the continuously flowing stream of Gil they paid for her time didn’t get the message across already.

Cassia became a busy woman, but no matter how tiring her nights were, she always set some part of her day aside to keep looking for any sign of her family. Day by day, she went out, trying to reach every corner of the city, talking to as many people as possible, and each day, when the time came that she had to stop for the day and return to her new home, the disappointment grew a little. As did her resentment of herself each time she noticed small moments in her days when she was so busy with other things that worrying about her family wasn’t the most dominant thing on her mind. 

The nights when she had a customer who managed to make her forget about everything but her own pleasure for the briefest of moments were the worst as they came hand in hand with a flood of guilt and shame. When Cassia looked at herself in the mirror in those mornings after, she felt nothing but disgust for what she saw. How dare she allow herself to forget for even a minute, when she had no idea if her family was suffering somewhere. If they were even still alive.

Over the months, the cold around her heart only grew. With each day that was full of disappointments, she could feel the spark of hope in her dim. Each night, her self-loathing drew her deeper into her spiral of despair until her searches became shorter and shorter, more of a habit than a genuine undertaking. That was until a customer that was decidedly of higher status than the usual clientele of Lady Luck’s establishment took a liking to her. She had only been there the first time out of a dare. An unusual adventure for someone far too prestigious and rich to normally even set foot into their part of town. 

But she liked Cassia’s face, and only two nights later, she was back. Another few days later, she showed up again, and before Cassia knew, she was there almost every week. After two months of her attention, the woman came to her with a special offer, asking her between breathless sighs and hands clenched into satin sheets if she could convince her to join a private gathering in her estate.

It wasn’t the first invitation of that sort Cassia had ever gotten, but she had never before been tempted to accept one. Lady Luck took great care to make sure each one of her workers was as safe as they could be. There were rules in her establishment everyone had to abide by, and if they didn’t, there were enough security guards, one next to each private room, to make sure they would not be disobeyed. Removing herself from that had always seemed far too risky for Cassia.

But this woman came from a different part of town. A part where people like Cassia could rarely, if ever, set foot in, and for the first time in many weeks, Cassia felt the flicker of hope in her burn brighter again. She would be able to talk to entirely new people. Maybe someone there had seen or heard anything about her family. 

When the woman explained to her just what would be expected of her, Cassia almost faltered again. She had gotten used to this life she was living now, to a degree, but what was asked of her now was something entirely different. Instead of privately entertaining a customer in a closed-off room, she would be expected to entertain several people at once, while being watched by the rest, and Cassia nearly said no. But before she could decline politely, she saw Adriene’s face in her mind, her sister smiling at her in a memory that felt almost painful from the amount of longing it caused in her. And Cassia knew that the mere thought of hope would be enough. Would make her able to endure anything.

When Cassia agreed, uttering the worry that she might disappoint for being new to all of this, the woman let out a delighted laugh. “Don’t worry, my lovely,” she whispered in her ear, “I’ll guide you, teach you everything you need to know. And I can promise you, we are going to make sure you will enjoy yourself to the fullest as well.” She licked her lips with a promising glint in her eyes. “And if you perform well, I might even have a surprise for you later.”

Cassia could only assume she performed more than adequately by the amount of offers for similar events she had collected at the end of it. And her benefactor’s words had not been an idle promise. She had indeed a surprise for her – an offer to move up. Into the higher parts of town, a brothel of certain standards. One of them being that it would never call itself as such.

They preferred to say theater. Putting on small plays as entertainment that were little more than one big presentation, showing their patrons the many facets of the men and women they could spend all their gil on later. And despite a brief hesitation of leaving the people she had gotten to know over the past year behind, Cassia knew she had to accept. Had to grab the chance to look for her family in a new place.

Her nights stayed the same, only the surroundings changed. Better sheets, more elaborate foods, and much more well-dressed customers couldn’t hide what she had fully accepted herself to be by now. Better cosmetics and fancier dresses didn’t change the fact that she was a whore and had been almost from the moment she got to this place. Only now she was a much better paid one. And one who started to make a name for herself.

Most days, she wasn’t sure if that was something that made her feel better or worse about herself. 

The first thing Lady Luck had taught her had been a phrase. Audi, vide, tace - Hear, see, and be silent. A motto, a creed, and a guiding light for everything Cassia had to be when she was with someone. Perception was key. She had to hear each wish in people’s voices, see all their desire on their faces, and mold herself into what they wanted, making sure that her own voice stayed silent. A simple sentence turned into a valuable life lesson, and Cassia had always heeded the advice.

It helped, but it also changed her.

Cassia stopped seeing herself in the mirror. Instead, what looked back at her was a woman who became more and more of a stranger to her. Her smile was enticing, her natural features enhanced by paint that had become like a soothing mask. The woman in the mirror learned something new each day, giving her more and more tools to make men and women alike beg for her attention. But her eyes were cold. They were the eyes of a person who had learned to see everything but show nothing. In a way, she had indeed become an actress.

The hope she had felt at moving up and having more reach for her search became stale sooner than she thought. Every day, it was the same as it had been in the old place. No results, no word, not even a whisper about anyone she knew.

Most of the workers she got to know took time off every now and then, but Cassia never did. A night to herself would mean a night full of sorrows and too much free time to think. And it would mean a night of missed opportunities. Every person she met, every customer, every friend of theirs was a source of information. Was another dot in a vast net of contacts, of people she could ask questions, and so Cassia never stopped working. Be it on her feet by day, tirelessly asking every single person who passed through the city for information, or be it at night when she would spend hours on her knees until she was nearly delirious with exhaustion, just for the chance to ask one more person about her family.

The answers were always the same, but Cassia found that it almost didn’t matter anymore. She couldn’t stop. No matter how many times she lost hope. If she would stop she would break apart. It wasn’t an option anymore. And when half a year later, after she had serviced a dignitary who hailed from the capital, she got an offer to move up once again from him it wasn’t even a question. She had said yes before his breathing had managed to calm down again.

And so she left this city of steel and stone, that had held no answers for her, for an even bigger one. 

Garlemald.

It was as fascinating as it was intimidating to her. It had taken some time for Cassia to get used to the size of the city she had originally arrived in, but that was nothing against the sheer vastness of the capital. The benefactor who had taken her here arranged another acting opportunity for her, and this time, the theater company he introduced her to actually took the acting part of their job seriously. It was still a front for sold time and flesh in hidden backrooms, but the part that came before was actually something Cassia found she could enjoy. She had always been great at pretending after all. Pretending to be something she was not when she hid her magic from the templars back home. Pretending she wasn’t deeply unhappy about having to hide and having magic at all when she was around her family. Pretending that she was mad with lust for whoever was paying her to do so. Pretending she wasn’t terrified each moment of every day when thinking about never hearing from anyone she had loved ever again. Actual acting on a stage came to her as natural as breathing.

And again, she searched and worked and searched. A new place, filled with new people, and by now, Cassia was well aware of the tools she had in her arsenal and the benefits of being highly sought after and somewhat famous. It opened doors that were previously closed, and Cassia knew one thing: If she had no luck finding her family so far, she would have to widen her search. And the more famous she became, the more people knew her face and her name, the more reach she would get, the higher her chances were of maybe, one day, finding what she was looking for. 

She learned to use people the same way they were using her. Trading the things she could offer them for more than just money. For connections, introductions, and the one or other secret that could help her move forward. 

And moving forward she did. A couple of months here, another half year there, Cassia moved from theater to theater. With each change, the acting parts grew while the other parts became less. But even if it wasn’t their primary concern, each company manager encouraged their actors to take on patrons. Art needed a steady flow of gil like everything else, after all, and nothing brought the wealthy to spend all their money like buying themselves a night or two of the fantasies they watched on stage. 

The day Cassia realized that she had not looked for her sisters, her mother, or her brother in over a month she felt so violently ill she was almost sure she would die from the shame alone. More so when she faced the fact that she had been without a single hint about them for almost four years by now. The despair threatened to consume her, and for a few days, she felt unable to even leave her room. For the first time since she had originally offered herself to a stranger for a night under a roof and a warm dinner, she spent a few nights on her own. Alone, in the dark, Cassia wept into her pillow at the sheer hopelessness of it all. When she went back to her regular days and nights after this, something had changed yet again. Her heart had grown even colder, more detached from everything around her. The mask on her face was tighter, enough to feel almost suffocating on some days, but on most, it was a shield. Not against the outside, but against what she carried within. As long as Cassia didn’t recognize the woman in the mirror, she could keep her at arm’s length, pretending that this dolled-up mirage was who actually smiled at people. That it was the woman in the mirror who enjoyed all the attention and blossomed underneath it. Who had learned more and more to lose herself in ecstasy night after night. That there wasn’t a part of her that kept screaming in agony on the inside. The mask she had made out of her own face was on so tightly she knew without a doubt that no one could see the real Cassia anymore. All they saw was the actress, the whore, and in a way, it made it easier for Cassia to feel like that was all she actually was. It made it easier to not be drowned by the despair that welled up each time she thought about how she was also a daughter and a sister. And as she went on through her days like this, her luck was about to change again.

Cassia made it a habit to draw away from her patrons whenever she got the feeling they were getting too attached to her. It didn’t happen all that often, most people were very aware of the nature of their relationship with her. But every now and then, there was someone, most of the time a man, who felt like there was more going on between them than a business transaction. Who started talking about their feelings for her, about their dreams and wishes that she would be theirs, and theirs alone. Back at the very beginning, years ago, Lady Luck had warned her about that. Advised her to never encourage such behaviour and told her gruesome stories about the entitlement some patrons felt, and what it could lead to, and Cassia had always heeded her advice.

So when her most wealthy patron started dropping hints about how he wished she could give him more, Cassia was beyond careful but nonetheless clear and strict with her words, telling him plainly that she would have to stop seeing him immediately if he brought any more emotions into this.

To her complete surprise, he started laughing. “My dear, you misunderstand,” he said with a good-natured twinkle in his eyes. “I am very happily married, and I have absolutely no desire to take you away from what seems to be your destiny.” His eyes became more serious as he leaned closer. “No, what I meant was that I have certain… proclivities that I cannot indulge in at home. Or with you, so far. But I can’t help but wonder if there might be a way to change the latter, with the right incentive of course.”

The relief that had gone through her at his first assurance, that he was certainly not dreaming of a future with her, was short-lived as Cassia listened to him. Proclivities could mean a lot, but she couldn’t help but be intrigued at the look in his eyes when he spoke about an incentive. When she asked about it, the answer nearly took her breath away as he offered her several times the amount of gil he would usually pay for her time. And her fee was steep already. Briefly, Cassia imagined just what she could do with that amount of money. How many favors it could buy her. How many messengers and how many inquiries. Curiously, she asked just what it was that he wanted from her.

A moment later, he drew her into his lap, and she could feel how excited the mere thought of telling her made him as he drew her closer and started whispering things into her ear. 

Cassia’s breath got stuck in her throat as he went on and on, telling her in great detail just what he had in mind. In all her time selling her body, Cassia had always looked out to make sure she herself was at least somewhat safe. Even the shady establishment of Lady Luck had hired muscle keeping an eye on things to never let customers go too far. And though Cassia had seen others like her engage in acts involving physical harm of some sort, it always had looked like nothing too extreme. But what he wanted to do to her made all of that look like child’s play, and Cassia felt a shiver of fear run down her neck.

With a strained smile, she got up from his lap as she politely declined his request and excused herself. She was ready to do a lot for money, but even she had her limits.

Somehow, she thought that this would be the end of it, but it seemed like their brief talk had sparked something in him, and the next evening, after her show, he was waiting for her in her dressing room.

“Will you not reconsider,” he murmured against her skin as he took her against the full-length mirror on the wall, and Cassia stifled down a moan as his fingers worked perfectly in sync with his thrusts. She was nothing but honest when she told him that she was both worried about coming to harm and about what it would mean for her reputation if word ever got out she engaged in any of this with him. What kind of patrons it would bring to her doorstep more frequently.

“My dear, you may act on stage in the evening, but we both know you make your living at night on your back and with your legs up in the air. Your  _ reputation _ isn’t worth all that much to begin with,” he said, sounding both amused and patronizing. “But let me sweeten the deal with something else, something special,” he murmured against her ear as he picked up his pace, and a moment later he spent himself inside her with a deep groan. His fingers were still working her, and Cassia felt herself close to the edge as he added, “An audition. At the Prima Vista. You want to be a serious actress and play on the grand stage? I can make that happen for you.”

Cassia gasped for air both from the pleasure wracking through her and the meaning behind his words. The Majestic Theater Company. The highest goal of every actor in Garlemald. A theater on an airship that traveled all over the realm. For the smallest of moments, something warm flared up in her chest, the tiniest spark of hope desperately trying to break through the coldness around her heart as she thought about one thing and one thing only: The possibility of looking for her family in every corner of the known world. And all of a sudden, a night full of things that terrified her seemed like a small price to pay.

When she finally said yes, he was so excited he took her against the mirror another two times before they sat down and drafted a formal arrangement. 

A week later, she found herself in one of the more luxurious entertainment suites in the city, her heart beating in her throat out of fear. But Cassia was determined to see this through. For the first time in more than a year, it looked like she had a chance at hope again, and for that, no price was too high. She had prepared herself as to his requests, clean-shaven and perfumed in his favourites, wearing nothing but a thin leather collar under her long cloak. One of the men her company manager usually sent to stand watch was outside the building, ready to take her home the next day if she required assistance, and Cassia had made an appointment with a healer for the next morning in advance. Her patron had promised her that, while there would be lasting injuries, he would do nothing to her that could not be healed up in time for her next performance. Cassia was as ready for this as she could be.

When she dragged herself out of the suite early in the morning, all she could think of was that she hadn’t been ready at all. She was slightly disoriented, barely able to walk, and from what it felt like, bleeding profoundly in several places. The full-length mirror next to the bed when she had slowly gotten dressed again had hidden nothing. From the purple bruises around her neck to the bitemarks and angry red welts covering her entire body, she knew she had looked horrific. And yet, he had showered her with compliments, telling her over and over again that he had never seen something as beautiful as her. 

There were hints of dried blood on some places where her skin had been split open by one too many a hit with a whip. Cassia could still feel her ears ringing at the memory of the sharp sound it had made. She winced out of reflex merely thinking about the blinding pain that had followed the sound each and every time. Her throat was raw from screaming through the night, her cheeks swollen and staining so much that Cassia almost expected to see an actual handprint on her skin. She would have never expected to one day be a part of something so twisted as she remembered more of his words. How he had told her he could love her like this as he painted every part of her with blows and cruel touches, finishing his work with a layer of her tears. Looking at her like she was something holy, something sacred, all while Cassia felt like she was dying.

But she was still alive, and the same determination that had kept her from running away in fear the night before, that had kept her from ever uttering the agreed-upon phrase to make him stop still fuelled her, got her into the blissful care of a healer where she could sink into unconsciousness for a while. 

But in the end, it had been worth it. Not even a month later, Cassia packed her bags. She was moving up again. Higher than ever before. True to his word, he had gotten her into an audition and had even put in a good word for her, and as she said goodbye and thanked him politely for the opportunity, she could almost forget what it had cost her. 

Almost.

“I wish you the best of luck,” he said as he drew her into a last embrace. “I have had many beautiful women, but the memory of you, broken through my hands, begging and pleading, your voice hoarse, will stay my favourite thing in the world, forever.” And with that, he gave her a last kiss, full of memories Cassia would rather forget as the heat of his mouth went to battle with the heat of the shame that flooded her at hearing his words. And when she boarded the Prima Vista later that day, she kept thinking that it might have been worth it, but that the price had still been too high.

Life on the Prima Vista could have changed everything for her. Cassia had hoped it would. But if she was honest with herself, she had to admit that the change she had wanted, the change this new opportunity could have given her, came far too late. 

Each time she had tried to hold on over the last few years, each time she had carved some hope out for herself, she had lost something along the way. From the very first night in a stranger’s bed, she had started to make decisions that had slowly hollowed her out. Cassia had never held a high opinion of herself, but with each opportunity taken, each offer accepted, she had reached new lows. Things she would have deemed unthinkable back home, when her world had still been whole, had become something painfully normal by now. Each time someone had asked even more from her, offering her more in return, it had eroded something in her, pushed her boundaries further and further until they broke apart under the pressure.

The Majestic Theatre Company didn’t expect their actors to bring in the money for them. They were the Emperor’s favourite project, never wanting for anything. No one expected Cassia to go out and privately entertain their more wealthy viewers just to secure the next show. They were a kind group of people, Cassia found, the Lexentale family and their company. Offering warmth and friendship and a shared passion for their art. 

But the genuine warmth behind their smiles felt like burning matches being dropped on her skin.

Cassia didn’t know how to be someone like that anymore. Someone who cared, who was open and honest about their feelings, someone whose smile was genuine. She tried her best, but it felt like an impossible task. 

The night Cassia truly realized just how shattered she was, was the night she lay alone in her bed in her new home, thinking about how she got there. About that night that nearly broke her, and Cassia found herself shaking as she, quietly and in utter secret, admitted to herself that part of her had wanted that night with a fiery determination. That underneath all the fear and disgust, there had been something she had been yearning for. Because a part of her knew she had deserved it. That she, living most of her days in splendid luxury, reaping the rewards from years of taking everyone into her bed who so much as waved a coin at her, deserved every bit of pain and humiliation that had been bestowed on her. That it had felt only right, serving as due punishment for the many moments she spent in bliss under someone else's hands while she had still not found even a hint of her family. She had felt like she wanted to die then, and yet, Cassia lay awake at night, knowing that if she ever saw this man again, she would beg him to do it again. To let her atone for all of her sins until she was too broken to feel anything at all.

The nights she spent alone like this, feeling herself slowly drift into someone even more unrecognizable, were dangerous and Cassia knew it. And so she kept doing what she had done the past few years to keep her mind occupied and her thoughts from wandering down even darker places. When she was on her knees, focussing on performing perfectly, she had no time to think of anything else. And she quickly found out that, while the company didn’t need her to do any of these things, they appreciated the rewards that came with it nonetheless.

And then, she met someone. An Au’ra woman, a couple of years younger than her, who had hard eyes and didn’t smile when they first met in the most peculiar way. Discovered as a stow-away, their acquaintance was almost over before it even began as the company director declared to cut her loose at the next port they docked, but there was something in the woman’s eyes that had given Cassia pause. Her sparse words and haunted look telling the story of someone fleeing from something, and without further thought, Cassia found herself pleading for her, using every argument she could muster to convince the company to let her stay. 

“We could need extra hands behind the stage, but not this season, it’s not in our budget,” came the unemotional reply, and Cassia sighed before pulling the director aside and offering to compensate for that. They paid Cassia handsomely after all, if they would simply divide that by two, they should have no further issues with their money. The director shook his head in disbelief, but he had nothing to counter her point. And so, Saran not only got to stay but started to work with them as a stagehand the next day.

When the director asked Cassia just why she was so hell-bent on helping someone she didn’t even know, Cassia only shrugged, saying something about having a good feeling about her. She didn’t know how to explain that looking at Saran she had seen a woman on the run. What she was running from, Cassia didn’t know yet. Maybe from people, maybe from her entire life, and it stirred something she could deeply relate to that made it impossible to stand back and not do everything she could to help.

Saran didn’t talk much, but when she did, it was never hollow phrases or small talk with her. Her sparse words felt more genuine than anything Cassia had experienced in the past years, and it drew her to Saran like a moth to a flame.

She was different from the people she had met so far. Cassia could tell she was troubled, had seen and lived through things others her age hadn’t. And when they talked, there was never any need for facades. Sometimes, on quiet nights when Cassia felt close to drowning in her own thoughts, she sought out Saran instead of looking for someone to take into her bed, and the two of them talked, hidden away in the rafters until the sun came up. 

Saran’s stories of her home sounded strange and terrifying, and it didn’t take Cassia long to understand why she felt so much kinship for the other woman. The details were different, but on a certain level, they were the same. Both people thrown into a life they had not chosen for themselves, both learning to survive by whatever means necessary. They had chosen different paths, but their thoughts aligned, and for the first time in years, Cassia had someone she would proudly call her friend.

A friend who didn’t judge her but who was also not afraid to call her out on her more self-destructive behaviour if she went too far. Saran’s fierce protectiveness became a thing of its own, gaining a reputation all by itself, and wherever they went, people learned quickly not to cross certain lines.

The first time Cassia had sported visible bruises after a night with one of her patrons in Saran’s presence, it had taken her an hour of her most eloquent talking and assurances to keep the other woman from straight-up throwing him off the airship and into the next chasm. Cassia’s face burned with shame as she tried to explain that she had asked for it. That he hadn’t done anything against her will. Ending with the assurance that if that would ever be the case, she would tell Saran immediately. She could see that Saran didn’t like her explanation, but Cassia was nothing but grateful when her friend finally sighed and said, “I don’t like it one bit, but I trust you to know what you are doing.”

A sentence that sounded so simple but managed to burn through lacers of ice straight into her heart.

Cassia had almost forgotten what it was like to have someone around she trusted. That she could be herself with and not feel judged or pitied and as their weeks together turned into months, Cassia slowly started to see that even in all the misery of not having found any trace of Adriene, Bethany, Carver, or their mother, she had nonetheless found some semblance of family. 

But her search continued, now spreading out all over the realm. Wherever the Prima Vista made port, Cassia was out almost every night, doing what she did best and learning all she could about the people there, their connections, and what they knew in her own special way.

When the ship toured Orthand, they played for the troops, and Cassia couldn’t bring herself to care about the fact that she was entertaining an army that was invading a country full of innocent people. All she could think about was that both Adriene and Carver had been in the army once. That it would make sense for either of them to take up work as a soldier, and if Cassia had to make her way through half of the bedrolls in their army camp just to be certain no one there had ever heard of either of them, she would, and she did.

A few weeks later, she found herself in what felt like the opposite situation. Hired by the royal family to perform in the palace, it was a vast change from the rough atmosphere on the front lines, but Cassia made due. Especially when an offer for her private time came from the same palace that week, from someone of the royal family themselves. She never found out who it was that actually hired her, for a night of her time and attention was a gift to some highly decorated Legatus. In hushed whispers, her company members told her the rumors surrounding his ascension to status, one more outrageous than the other. Cassia wasn’t sure she should believe most of them. In fact, she was inclined to believe none at all after a surprisingly pleasant and interesting night that was filled as much with engaging conversation as it was with other, more expected things.

When she returned to the ship the next morning, Cassia stopped in front of her mirror. The woman looking back at her, dressed in the finest things gil could buy, looked like a woman who had made it in life. A woman who had status, money, and the attention of some of the most powerful people in the country. The face that stared back at her was on every poster, every flyer. People recognized her on the streets, they knew her name and curried for her favour more than ever before. There wasn’t a trace of the starving, almost freezing-to-death person that had arrived in this strange country almost five years ago visible anymore.

Five years. 

Five years since she had lost her family, but if Cassia knew one thing, it was that she wasn’t done searching for them. Maybe she never would be. And in a week, when the Prima Vista would fly again, this time to an entirely new place, Cassia would pick her search right back up. Both Garlemald and the East had been empty, but in a few weeks, she would start looking anew in the so-far unknown lands of Eorzea.


End file.
